“Some of your men who’ve moved in good criminal society,” he said firmly. “Rush it, old thing.”
After breakfast on the next day but one he was going to the telephone to talk to Lomas when the thing rang at him. “Is that Fortune?” said Lomas’s voice. “Speaking? The great Mr. Fortune! I looks towards you, Reginald. I likewise bows. Come right on.”
Mr. Fortune found Lomas with Superintendent Bell. They lay back in their chairs and looked at him. Lomas started up, came to him and walked round him, eyeglass up.
“What is this?” said Mr. Fortune. “Dumb crambo?”
“Admiration,” Lomas sighed. “Reverence. Awe. How do you do these things, Fortune? You look only human, not to say childlike. Yet you have us all beat. You arrive while we’re still looking for the way.”
“I wouldn’t have said it was a case for Mr. Fortune, either,” said Bell.
“No flowers, by request. Don’t be an owl, Lomas. Who is Kuyper?”
Lomas sat down again. “I hoped you were going to tell us that,” he said. “What in the world made you go for Kuyper?”
“He calls himself Dutch and so did Witt. He deals in jewels and so did Witt. And I fancy he set the ‘Daily Watchman’ howling that Wilton must stay in prison.”
“And if you will kindly make sense of that for me I shall be obliged,” said Lomas.